Landscapes were always my preserve
lying in my third-hand bath each night
the water clouded by soap
opaque as certain seas
I raised my knees to tower over
the fjord of water between my legs
I didn’t have my later geographer’s
vocabulary of fjords, rias and alps
the drowned and the truncated
alps – shoulders bulldozed by the ice
flanked by hanging valleys
pouring high waterfalls into space
but what’s in a name
I conjured the landscape anyway
Trapped in bed, off school for weeks
bronchitis, chronic
my dappled woolen blanket
(whatever became of that favourite)
also stood in for the freedom to explore.
Raising my knees again
from foothills to mountains at will
and sometimes with toys to hand
I marshalled my ill-assorted troops
into commanding positions
directing wars in my lap
with my fevered bed-bound brain
Before there was watercolour
before there was travel
before I could drive or even ride a bike
Landscapes were always my preserve…
Posted for lillian in Poetics over on dVerse Poets Pub who set the challenge of taking you on a walk – well not exactly a walk but…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
Nice one. This took me back to my childhood reading of a poem ….’when i was sick and lay abed, i had two pillows at my head, and all my toys beside me lay’……
Happy Tuesday
Much🖤love
Thank you so much Gilllena – do you remember who that poem is by? So good to meet you the other day…
Love
Andrew 💜
I like what you did with this prompt. Such and interesting walk throught your childhood and dreams of walking those landscapes.
Well Written!
I wrote this just the other week, unprompted – that is, not in my writing group – it has been in my memory forever. Poetry is bringing all these things to the surface Dwight…
Excellent take on the prompt. They were great landscapes we could make up when children. 🙂
Such unfettered imaginations we had Di – thanks for visiting 💜🙏
I like the thought of the landscape becoming you even before you could name its parts and being confined to bed. The particular names you tell sounds a lot like Norway
I have never been to Norway but I would love to see the fjords. There is huge painting of one in Leeds Art Gallery… https://images.app.goo.gl/kP2okaLT1BxMgWvG7
Your walk took me back to my own childhood, Andrew, especially the
third-hand bath ‘clouded by soap / opaque as certain seas’, and the way it took you to ‘hanging valleys / pouring high waterfalls into space’. When you are sick in bed, the imagination is the only way to escape to landscapes.
Thanks Kim – nothing like a trip down memory lane…
I enjoyed this too. That childhood imagination..I remember being so very poorly with shingles and measles and in the semi darkness reading Arthur Ransomes Missie Lee whilst eating toast and jam. You took me right back there.
Toast and jam in bed for the invalid – now you are taking me back there Alison…
I thought of The Land of Counterpane too (Robert Louis Stevenson). Imagining mountains and broad plains with nothing more than a bed quilt and a slightly feverish child’s mind. Thank you for the memory.
I guess it’s a common experience Jane but I am glad my poem took you there…
Poignant!
Thanks, Reena – pithy…
I absolutely love this especially; “Before there was watercolour/before there was travel/before I could drive or even ride a bike/landscapes were always my preserve.” Gorgeous write! ❤️❤️
Thanks Sanaa! Some people in my writing group, for example, have asked how I can write so quickly and fully formed but it feels like the thoughts expressed here have been in me forever and just needed poetry to come into my life in order to escape onto the page…
What a walk down memory lane and into familiar landscapes. The repetition of the first line at the end works well.
I think it is a favourite tool for me both in poems and prose, to circle back to the beginning for closure – thanks for visiting…
Clever!
It’s been amazing to see how many people have shared the same memories here in the comments Melissa – you never know what your children are getting up to in bath or bed…
A trip down memory lane, I enjoyed your landscape ….
Suzanne – those thoughts and memories have been in my head forever just waiting for a poem to get out…
I really enjoyed reading this. 🙂
Thank you Kate – when I first started back with a writing group, I was not sure if my free verse was really poetry or prose or maybe prose-poetry but now I am surer of my poetic tools and also, I like to think that poetry has infused all my prose writing except for perhaps the driest pieces I have to write for work…
A child’s imagination knows no boundaries. Love this poem!
Thanks Sara – I realised afterwards, that Robert Louis Stephenson got there first with “The Land of Counterpane” but from the comments it seems to be such a common experience…